Talk:United States v. Wheeler (1920)

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A fact from United States v. Wheeler (1920) appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 12 January 2008, and was viewed approximately 2,206 times (disclaimer) (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Wheeler that the Constitution alone did not give the government of the United States the authority to prosecute kidnappers?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2008/January.

Wikipedia

disambiguate?

There are two Supreme Court cases (that I know of) named United States v. Wheeler. The other one doesn't have an article yet. 69.140.152.55 (talk) 00:13, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done. GregJackP Boomer! 17:19, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Final paragraph is questionable

The article as a whole discussed the facts of the case, the USSC decision itself, subsequent decisions citing Wheeler, and topically related legal scholarship. It dabbles in the obvious traps to sensationalize the amply outrageous facts without wallowing in them. (e.g. 'permitted to denounce' instead of 'denouncing' to imply someone desperate pleading, using 'meant for' instead of 'erected to shelter' to imply Sonoran refugees had been displaced, putting passport in quotes to opine on what was not yet settled law, in a sentence constructed as an evocative narrative instead of a straightforward recitation of facts e.g. 'Passage through these checkpoints was conditioned on presentation of a passport issued by Wheeler', 'kangaroo court' is an uninformative pejorative not a description of the convening authority and procedures of the court.) The chronicle of outrageous events allows the reader to exercise discernment and reach a durable conclusion beyond a fleeting impressions of editors opinions and on the whole the article is a credible effort to create encyclopedic content that in the past would have been written and edited by experts in this area of law.

At this time the final paragraph is an interesting and engaging but uninformative speculation that certain causes might rely on Wheeler to expand the rights of particular classes in federal court. Its neither fact nor law and it makes no pretense of considering the claims it makes in any scholarly way, and the citations are student written articles published in less authoritative law review journals. I'm skeptical that unbalanced advocacy for hypothetical cases that law students argue could someday be logical sequelae of Wheeler is appropriate content for an encyclopedia article the general public can rely on as a source of factual knowledge.

Its not immediately obvious that attempting to balance the paragraph's point of view by considering the merits of the proposed advocacies would improve the situation. The reader's preceding context is the authoritative opinion of USSC justices. Putting the contemplations of Wikipedia contributors in the same context might appeal to an advocate because it seems to elevate the standing of the arguments offered. A critical reader should see it as calling the point of view of the entire article into question, invalidating its value as a reference, compelling them to disregard the entire article and turn their attention to another source.

I would confine an article about a century old historical USSC decision to historical facts and leave speculation about hypothetical future cases relying on the precedent to student law review journals, but I'm going to leave it to editors who look at these articles regularly. PolychromePlatypus (talk) 15:03, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]